The Best Laid Plans Of Mice and Men
by Vo0d0o-D0L
Summary: When The Batarian Hegemony plans to enslave the human race after failing to capture some, they realize the mistake they've made in stirring the hornet's nest. AU, storyline is humanity's eventual launch into the space age. Rated T for now.
1. Chapter 1

I watch the blossom fall away,

Like snowflakes in the wind.

This is the beauty of today

And the sorrow that it brings.

2030 AD, Listening post bravek, SOL System, Pvt Arkhan

"Sir, we are unprepared to uplift a species such as this. They are far too primitive - even the scientist Salarians would struggle to make this species space worthy."

"Very well. We will take a few of these... humans... and they will be brought to the hegemony within the week for closer analysis. This species could do well in the slave trade of Khar'shan. Do not fail us."

These were the final words spoken aboard the listening post before the alarm rang clear through the space station, all hands reporting to the armoury and then heading to the small 'invasion' fleet, which consisted of several undersized frigates and a single dreadnaught, which was the smallest ship with a brig large enough for slaving. Before long, the tiny fleet had departed and spread across several continents, deploying shuttles where they went so the alien force could gather humans without drawing attention to the vanishing of an entire settlement. In the end, spreading out benefitted them as they gathered a variety, as though they were kids collecting trading cards.

They came down from the skies under cover of darkness, and stole men and women and children alike. By the end of the night, the population of the world had fallen by over a thousand. There were many humans in the dreadnaught's cage - and Arkhan saw them all. Their skin was soft and supple, different from the coarse, hard Batarian skin, though it varied greatly in colour - from the deepest of blacks, to the purest of whites, though most of the primitives gathered were of a middle ground, a light golden colour, reddened by the colour of their blood. Then they all had some form of headdress, long and wavy, short and spiky, but strangest of all, the colour changed with each person. Each one looked oddly different, as though they were all a different race of their own.

By this time most, if not all, of the humans had woken to find themselves held captive, widespread panic storming the brig. But for every human panicking, there seemed to be three that were either staring down the guards at the edge of the cage or screaming at the top of their lungs, rattling the cage, obviously challenging the mighty Batarian guards to a fight as they spoke in their musical language that hit the ears like the snapping of a klixen's claws or a varren's jaws snapping the bones of his prey.

"Arkhan, we're approaching the relay. Get these pathetic creatures ready to be presented to the hegemony." A voice called on the comms, an officer from the bridge most likely - Arkhan didn't know their names as he'd never had permission to rise that high up the ship.

"Yes, Sir!" Arkhan said with enthusiasm. This task, although mind numbingly repetitive, would guarantee him a promotion. And so he set to work, taking the humans out one by one, armed guards training their weapons on each human who was scanned and tagged before being placed back in the cage. This process went on for the best part of ten minutes before the Batarian guards had to go into the crowd of human prisoners. Arkhan stared in astonishment as the humans overwhelmed the guards, rendering them unconscious as the sea of angry, defiant humans beat his comrades into oblivion. In less than two minutes the twenty Batarian guards had been either rendered unconscious or killed outright by the relentless pummelling that the humans had brought down to bear on their armoured bodies. In the next few seconds the humans tore the guards weapons from their corpses and begun to hand them out to members of the crowd.

Arkhan saw that in the centre of the mob was a single human wielding a revenant support weapon. This man obviously had military training if he was able to carry it with a degree of professionalism. In his strange language he saw that it was giving commands to the others around him. Realisation dawning upon him, Arkhan fumbled momentarily for his pistol, which he drew, aimed and shouted "NOBODY MOVE!"

2030, unknown location, SSgt Anderson.

Staff sergeant Anderson was making the return journey home from a local bar that he'd spent the evening at, celebrating the end of his tour of duty. Anderson had returned home last week from deployment in Somalia, where pirates were taking hostages regularly, disrupting trade routes and being enough of a nuisance for the Somali government to ask for outside help from NATO. The last thing that Anderson remembers from last night though was hearing a strange noise, as though there was a giant humming bird flying above his head. That was just before he'd spotted several burly looking men, who redefined the phrase _"butt ugly". _These men had proceeded to assault him, and despite his training, there were too many of them for him to counter, and he was knocked out cold.

Upon waking up, he immediately noticed that he wasn't alone, and though it was highly overcrowded, the air was slightly too fresh, despite the immediate smell of sweat and panic that permeated the air around him. It seemed like he was on an overcrowded airplane, with the air conditioning on throughout the aircraft.

His misconception about his location however was soon revealed as, when he stood up, his head slightly above the majority of the frightened population of the crowd, he saw many more of the disgusting looking men. They had a sickly yellow skin colour, as though they had missed a dialysis treatment session, which varied only slightly from a strong yellow ochre, to a slightly more natural, yellowy orange colour. But their skin was the least grotesque thing about them. Each one of these "men" had four eyes, complemented with eight nostrils that seemed to be constantly flared so you could right up their noses. Then they had bulbous lines of flesh that crossed their cheeks and faded onto their necks, which made their mouths appear to be inset slightly, as though they were completely separate from the rest of their faces. Anderson noted the sheer volume of teeth that they had, all of which pointed in different directions, as though the words "_dental hygiene_" meant nothing to these people. Finally, Anderson saw the strange, patterned, indentations that went from their brow to the back of their heads, making them seem as alien as possible. The only thing that he couldn't see about the aliens, was that although they were not much taller than he, if they were taller, but they were slightly stockier, which conveyed their physiological difference.

Anderson's scrutiny was interrupted suddenly when a deep, almost gurgling voice came through a loudspeaker "_Arkhan, nest volan gokolu nilan. Juthul kana barbanos murikolon distu daterios._" All of the humans looked in confusion at what the voice had said, but Anderson already knew that they were dealing with extraterrestrials. "_Gran, obika_!" One of the aliens in the room shouted back. That was when Anderson noticed him. He was slightly smaller than the rest, and it became apparent that he was one of the lowest on the ship when the bigger ones would grab someone and thrust them in front of him so he could use an orange, glowing wrist tool for a few seconds - what he did, Anderson knew not - before he forcibly placed a collar onto each person before they were returned to the cage. Before long, one of the guards had come in far enough, and went to grab Anderson. But he was too quick, deflecting the alien's hand and thrusting his own fist into its throat, causing it to choke and sputter, partly in shock but mostly in the pain of being hit so forcefully. In tandem, the people in captivity overthrew their alien overlords and Anderson grabbed the large weapon that his would be attacker had in its unconscious hands, before stripping it of the other weapons that it had and passing them to the nearest people around him. "Ok, step one on the return journey home is to get rid of the guards. The gate is open, and there's enough of us here to surprise the rest of the cre-

"_OORST VAS MILEK_!" He heard and the crowd turned angry mob spun to face the oppressor. It was a lone alien, the grunt, the lowlife of the ship that was aiming his pistol at Anderson, attempting to stop any form of revolt against his commanders. That was before someone opened fire on him and after several shots appeared to be ineffective, the rest tore through his body and ripping it to shreds. There was a moment's silence in the hold of the ship before over a thousand people starting cheering, unanimous cries of "freedom" echoed through the oversized room.

Before everyone could rush out of the cages and swarm the aliens above them, Anderson ran out to the door in front of everyone. "Who has military training?" He shouted over the cheering and rushing of the crowd. About a dozen hands shot into the air, in the part of the group that had heard him. "I want anyone with training to lead the way with me. These alien bastards picked the wrong damn race to screw with!" He roared as those who'd put their hands up appeared, alien weapons in hand, to cheers from the crowd as the exodus began.


	2. Chapter 2

2030, BSS Jaken, Captain Drakul

The dreadnaught that had been tasked with the transport of the one thousand, newly discovered humans was, somewhat poetically, also a part of the scouting fleet that had discovered the pre-space age species. Its Captain, Drakul, who was normally a sour man, was in a particularly bad mood because of several factors, including a lack of sleep, varren-shit orders from the hegemony to capture so few of the humans for analysis, and most importantly the level of incompetence that he was surrounded by.

His ship's navigator and pilot were nowhere to be found, and they were supposed to be plotting their course through the relay, then half of his bridge staff were too stupid to think of pinging their omni tools, while the other half were too busy arguing over petty things, like who had the last piece of gorlak cake - one of the nicest things that captain Drakul offered his crew for good service every few months. Drakul stood over his galaxy map, imperial. His presence within a few moments silenced everyone, before his deep roaring voice shattered the silence.

"Where the hell is Bolosk? I need him here NOW!" After a few seconds delay as the bridge looked at him in bewilderment they scurried like ants rushing to their positions, trying to contact their navigator.

Drakul saw his yeoman waiting patiently for his attention and immediately turned to face him.

"Sir, Bolosk was last seen on the elevator to the brig - it was his shift for guard duty... sir"

The captain thought for a second before he sent two men to go and relieve Bolosk from his duty so that he could come do his job as navigator. Almost petulantly, Drakul turned again to his galaxy map, at the helm of the ship.

2030, Alien spacecraft, Ssgt Anderson

There were 6 humans with alien weapons - not including Anderson himself - who were leading the horde of people through the maze of large, open corridors, aliens at every turn.

Fortunately, none of the aliens were expecting the captured humans to escape their hold, which gave them the element of surprise, so they were trying to remain as quiet as possible, by tackling and strangling the aliens, instead of shooting them, so that no alarm was raised and they weren't recaptured before they could find a way back to Earth. By the time they'd moved through the level they were on, they'd killed about a dozen of the aliens, some of which required teaming up in order to subdue them.

Anderson knew it would be impossible to hide every single human on the level as the crowd following their guardians squeezed through the hallways, people were shoulder to shoulder, some more panicky and pushy than others, but as a whole, relatively calm as the rear ranks (mostly) copied the example of the first who gave their protectors room to do their work by staying in the cleared rooms and corridors.

Sure enough though, not two minutes after the thought popped into his head the now recognisable hiss and semi silent swish of the alien ship's doors was heard in the gap between his group of military men and the rest of the crowd.

Two aliens stepped out as the seven men turned on instinct with their weapons raised. Engaged in idle conversation... or what Anderson thought was idle conversation, the aliens didn't immediately notice the group of humans, but after a moment one did. And then everything kicked off.

Before both targets could be taken out, one of them used its glowing orange wrist tool, and not a minute later, alarms were ringing ship wide.

Panic spread quickly, and it took a few minutes to calm just a portion of the crowd, and sensing the futility of their actions, Anderson and the other soldiers began to spur on the crowd, they began to direct their panic into anger. The crowd became a mob a thousand strong, ready to storm the ship and kill their captives.

Unfortunately, the elevator could only hold about ten people, all squeezed in shoulder to shoulder, so the rest were let loose on the ship, guided by most of the soldiers, traveling through maintenance walkways by the dozen, breaking anything they could - including their alien kidnappers.

The elevator stormed upwards through the ship to the next floor up, a few seconds of travel, before Anderson 3 other soldiers and 6 civvies stormed out the elevator and began charging down any Batarian that they could see. Despite the alarm only a few aliens had made it to the armoury and had more than just pistols, however those who had responded correctly effectively stopped the human escape dead in its tracks, for several unfortunate members of their group it was more literal than they would've liked. Anderson did a quick count of who he could see and there were only two civilians left, unless they were crowded together, they'd just lost four people in the blink of an eye.

A rather lengthy firefight ensued, and it was only when a different group of humans stumbled on to the battle that the tables turned in their favour. Overwhelming numbers brought the aliens to their knees, and they were quickly incapacitated.

Everything on the ship was going crazy now, people and aliens were everywhere engaged in their own battles, sometimes with weapons, sometimes without. What disconcerted Anderson most however, was the body count of people on the floor that he saw as they raced through the ship to find the captain and make him take them back.

Drakul had decided to reinforce the bridge with the remainder of his best men, as it was almost certain that without pilots, the human filth would try, and fail, to persuade him to take them back.

He had barely prepared five minutes ago when a stampede could be heard outside the metal doors, the bombardment of gunfire mingled with screams of both alien and Batarian voices disconcerted some of the men, but they were Batarian hunters, and would not fall to these pathetic humans.

"MEN! PREPARE TO FIRE!" Drakul commanded over the now roar of noises coursing through the barricaded door. They had purposefully sabotaged it so that only one, maybe two humans at a time would be able to make it through the door at a time.

In the end, the corpses of nearly one thousand humans lay dead and dying on board an alien vessel, the first of their kind to die off of the homeworld.

Anderson had managed to survive long enough to put down a couple of the aliens in the control room, but a couple was not enough. And so now, out of the thousand they started with, only three remained, and they were kept heavily under lock and key.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A quick AN before we start, there is some quite graphic stuff in this chapter, so be warned - that said, thank you for the support, i'll try to keep things going on a weekly basis.**_

_**Edit: Sorry for the format problem, I'm hoping its all sorted now :)**_

Khar'shan 2031 AD, Drakul.

Riksis Khan was the overseer for all Batarian space, and as such, he was infuriated by the lack of discipline of Captain Drakul's crew, and his frustration at the loss of the one thousand humans that were required for testing. Bodies were alright, but there was only so much you could learn from dead specimens. You needed the live ones for all the important tests.

And there were only three left.

"Drakul, the failure of your crew to deliver the requested number is a costly one, and those who died got what they deserved." Drakul looked as though he was about to interrupt but thought better of it. "Actions must now be taken. These three must be returned to their home planet and then we cannot reattempt this, otherwise their governments will become suspicious of our actions. Keep watch over their development, but do not let them become aware of us. The time for their… harvest… will draw near."

Drakul looked on, defiantly at the empirical figure in front of him, but bowed slightly in obedience. His anger welled in him, but he would not disobey. At least, not in front of the Overseer.

Drakul's anger overcame him just a few weeks later, when they had returned to that retched planet Earth, as they so tenderly called it. The Overseer had demanded they be returned to their homeworld, but in what condition, he failed to specify. He gave his crew two of the humans, while the dark skinned one, he kept for his own tortuous purposes.

Below him, he could hear the screams of the woman in her alien tongue as she fought bitterly, futilely, helplessly against the strength of his crew as they toyed with her and passed her around, each member having his way with the human filth. Her screams were filled with hate and fear, and her sobs dripped with helplessness. But they weren't the only screams that filtered their way up through the ship. The human man, held defenceless was being beaten, those who were either waiting their turn with the girl or who had had their fill were eagerly, mercilessly and relentlessly striking him, without the opportunity for him to strike back, his limbs secured.

But it was the bound hands of this… Anderson, as the others kept calling him, which took the attention of the captain. The human piece of shit that started this whole uprising, and nearly cost him his rank, would pay dearly. Not with his life, Oh no… that wouldn't last long enough.

Anderson was on his knees, his leg shattered from a bullet wound, as Drakul circled menacingly like a hungry shark, choosing the time to strike. His first blow came heavily, Drakul's well sized knee came thumping into the side of Anderson's head, the armour plating leaving a distinct imprint on his face. Blood trickled tenderly down the human's cheek and it was still wincing in pain, a low moan seeping from its mouth. Drakul smiled menacingly, thrilled that he drew blood from the waste that was occupying a perfectly good garden world.

"You know, I'm going to ruin you. And in a few years, I'm going to come back here and Take your entire race. When that day comes, I'll find you, and only then will I kill you." As Drakul spoke, he edged closer and closer to the human's face, blood moving slightly more freely now, though it was caught and matted the hairs on its head and face. The human was giving him a look of pure vitriol and smiled insanely as the blood stained his mouth. Before Drakul knew it Anderson had launched his head into the bridge of his noses, and it staggered Drakul, sending him backwards, stunned.

"You obviously don't get it do you." It said, its Alien words venomous and sharp as knives. "I can't speak your fucking language, you shit-bag." And with that 'Anderson' launched a gob of blood and spit which hit the floor by Drakul, a few drops of his own blood running down his face hit the floor and mingled with Anderson's.

"You'll pay for that human," Drakul said as an orange blade appeared on his wrist. "Now, I'm going to make you _really_ suffer." And with those words he slid the omni blade into Anderson's shoulder, as slowly as he could, to savour all the emotions flying across the human's face. First the shock as the cold blade split the skin, then the pain as the nerves were cut, then hatred, as the blade slid in further, as though it were slicing water. "I hope you feel this for the rest of your life." Drakul jerked his arm forward and forced the blade downwards, flesh and bone seemingly melting away as the agonised cries of the human battered Drakul's ear drums, and echoed eternally through the hallways of the ship, the screams from below silenced by this new, more horrifying pain.

Houston, TX, CJ 0130h

A few months ago, Charles Jaquez had discovered something wrong in the solar system. But it had been written off as an anomaly as it, or rather they, seemed to disappear, and it was thought that all that had been seen was a few motes of dust that had gotten into the equipment, and just as quickly left it. But now, it was back. And not just a similar anomaly – it was the exact same one. This was too much to be coincidence.

Realigning nearby satellites to get a look at the objects, CJ's jaw hit the floor, and it took him a good few minutes to recover himself. Immediately after he got onto the phone.

"Sir, It's back. I'm sending you the feed now." After a moments silence and several seconds speedily hitting the keyboard, the live feed was also directed to NASA's main station.

A clatter. More silence. Eventually the phone crackled as the man on the other end of the line picked the phone from the floor and put it back to his ear.

"We need to get in contact with the other agencies, see if they're seeing what we are. I hope to god that if they're real, they're friendly. Monitor the situation, I'll be in touch CJ." And with that, the line dropped.

When the ships began to near Earth's orbit they stopped, and didn't move for quite some time. It wasn't until one of the satellites picked up a fast moving object over the Atlantic that CJ realised something was making a drop. Just as he was about to pick up the phone again it rang, sending shockwaves through his already terrified body.

"They're on the move…"

"What do you mean, the ships are right where I damn left them an hour ago. This feed had better be live CJ."

"No, you don't understand. There's a fast moving object over the Atlantic, its already nearing NYC

"What the hell! Ok, I'm initiating advent protocol. Keep watch."

The line dropped again, and CJ tentatively put the phone down again, watching as the shuttle hastily made its way towards Manhattan. When it reached the coast it seemed to slow to a halt.

As fast as he could, CJ refocused the satellites camera to get a better view of the object. It was very square, and very bulky, though it seemed to be a bit more menacing than that as it seemed to have some kind of pattern of spikes, latticed over the body, and two mean looking weapons on either side. As he watched, one side of the shuttle seemed to extend, and it took a moment for him to realise that it was because of a door opening.

"Holy Shit."

NYC, Anderson 0300h

When Anderson awoke, drowsiness blurred his vision, and a more than dull ache was coming from his shoulder, the pain in his leg not much better than his shoulder.

"I mmed somm pankil." Anderson's words slurred through his semi-conscious body and somehow made it out of his lips.

"Wha did he shay?" A man's voice, the words equally as slurred. When Anderson saw who it was he realised the other two survivors were there with him. What had actually dragged him into his stupor was the blinding light of the hospital room that they now found themselves in.

"I… I hurf." Was all Anderson managed to struggle out, his head rolling. All his eyes seemed to fixate on was a solid wooden door. Suddenly it opened, reasonably slowly, and the other two in the room slid away, trying to hide themselves, the almost silent motion of the door sweeping the inaudible sound of whimpering towards the bed in which he lay.

"Please, don't be afraid. There are some gentlemen here to see you."


	4. Chapter 4

_**I'm not too sure of this chapter to be honest, I was losing headway with the way things were going but i found it again (I hope). I'm glad people have enjoyed the story so far, and I hope that you continue to do so! More actual action will ensue, so don't hate for the time skip/world development.**_

_**Enjoy :)**_

* * *

Anderson, 2031

It had now been a few months since Anderson had seen his wife - and more importantly his son. But they couldn't know that he was safe yet. His first duty was to his country, and so even though it was against his wishes, he had to give all the information that he could on what had happened.

Every precaution was being taken - all three survivors were in quarantine and were being scanned regularly for any alien diseases. As far as Anderson knew, they weren't even in a hospital anymore, more likely some secret government base - but there was nothing on the walls to indicate where they were.

They had all been treated carefully for their wounds, and in the few days that they had been back on earth, Anderson and the other survivors of the ordeal had been able to recover slightly, the woman - Jessica was her name - however had been given plenty of psychiatric treatment as well to try and remove the terrifying and scarring memories from the forefront of her mind and into a place where she would hopefully forget it in time. They had also been questioned briefly by some government officials, but they were only after who had dumped them into the sea and then disappeared into the night sky, and then they left to let them recover.

They were back now though, and there were more of them, all of the new men looked as though they were very high up in the CIA or maybe even had the ear of the president himself.

"Hello, ms Danner, Mr Anderson, Mr Rodriguez." one man in a black suit and tie said warmly as they entered the large room. "We only need you for a few more questions and then you'll be free to return to your families. We understand that these aliens were a pale yellow in complexion and seemingly stronger than humans. There must have been a considerable amount for your rebellion to have ended the way it did – any idea on numbers?"

There was silence from the three before Rodriguez (his head covered lightly in a buzz cut, his face much more covered with a full beard spoke up, an American accent, though it was heavily marred by a hispanic upbringing) spoke up, his voice permeating the recycled air in the room. "I don't know how many people there were, but it was quite a lot. Enough to fill the bottom floor of their ship – and it wasn't exactly very small… we had to fight through so many of them…" His voice trailed off and his eyes glazed over.

"That's alright Mr Rodriguez," the first agent said, snapping the survivor out of his reverie and away from the painful memories that could be seen etched onto his body. "We would like for the three of you to be compensated greatly for your endurance in this ordeal – and we believe it is best that you know all first world governments are aware of our discontinued isolation in the universe and several programs have already been drafted to counter extra-terrestrial threats like this in the future."

...

It was just a few hours later – a short(ish) plane ride and a seemingly never ending car journey and he was standing outside his house, the sky fairly dark as it was only early spring, the golden lights from the windows stretching across the yard. For a moment he wanted to march right up to the door and hug and kiss his wife and child, and then he felt his arm hurting excruciatingly painful, except for the fact that the pain was coming from a metallic prosthetic that was a very basic, very early (and largely untested) version of the prosthetics from the robocop franchise. "God dammit." He cursed under his breath, silently vowing to kill any alien that threatened humanity.

Rubbing his metal arm, as though trying to warm himself up against a cold wind, he approached the door and knocked twice with his good hand. He stood back slightly from the door, fighting back a tear that threatened to fall down his cheek.

Eventually, the door opened, the warm light cascading out of the hallway of the familiar building. In the doorway stood a woman, she was beautiful. Seeing her sent stars through his head and she stared at him momentarily, stunned into silence, her hand over her mouth and tears evidently flooding into her eyes.

"James?" Her voice quivered as she spoke, disbelief evident in her tone. "Is… is it… James!" Words escaped the beauty before she rushed into her husband's arms – although collapsing would be a more appropriate word. "I thought I'd lost you forever…" Her voice faded as she choked on her words, emotion filling her throat instead.

"Its me baby, I'm home…" Anderson simply held her in his arms, the warmth of her touch and the sound of her voice enough to tip his own tears out of his eyes.

But it was a moment like all moments – fleeting and only to be remembered, as she felt the cold, hard touch of metal and she stepped back, away from him and looked at him. "You look terrible, what the HELL happened to you?" She demanded.

"Baby, If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." The strange reunion was happening right in the doorway, but they didn't move inside.

"Try me – if you got drunk and into trouble I'm going to be SO angry with you."

At that Anderson merely laughed. "I wish I had got drunk and had a fight – at least that way I would've been able to get something good out of it…" He paused and looked at her, her tears had stopped falling for the moment, as well as his own, but her eyes were red, as though all the tears of a lifetime had come rushing out at once. "I'm gonna sound like a crazy person… But…" Anderson took a deep breath and sighed heavily. Here goes nothing… "I was abducted by aliens."

"So they took you away for six months and stole your arm?" She sounded hysterical, and with good reason.

"Well… I wasn't the only person… But we tried to escape, and this is the result. Hundreds of people dead, and three left, horribly victimised." The look in her eyes was one of belief, but how much she believed of the truth, Anderson didn't know.

"What kind of aliens do that to people!?" She asked, incredulously, though after a moment she looked as though she'd just said something moronically.

"I honestly don't know much about them… But I do know that they're ugly as hell – and they chose to fight the wrong fight. I don't know if they'll come back… But when they do, they'll sure as hell be sorry for messing with us."

* * *

_2045 april_

_A manned mission to mars – launched conventionally 2 years earlier reaches its destination and exploration of the dead planet begin._

_2045 october_

_Several months after the mission to mars begun, and only a few days before its end, the crew discover an outcropping of rocks, but they are all artificial in appearance with broad carvings and an entrance to an underground complex is found, though it is inherently empty of everything. Despite this, it is undeniable proof of alien life on mars, and it is the only public evidence for aliens at the time._

_2050-78_

_Fossil fuels effectively run out in the year 2050 and the ensuing 30 years is a period of almost constant war as countries and alliances fight to secure resources. At the end of this period of global war, over half the world's considerable population are dead, but scientists discovered a way to produce unlimited green energy through perpetual motion and nuclear fusion. Deployment of nuclear armaments nearly cast Earth into a veritable nuclear winter, but environmental scientists manage to figure out terraforming before the winter sets and the global environment is purged of radiation – nuclear armaments being banned on Earth after the near disaster._

_2035-85 Initial years of Project Destiny_

_Project Destiny, the final draft of humanity's response to alien threat researches heavily in both spaceflight and human augmentation. Chemical's released into the world's water/food supplies increase muscular mass, height and bone density throughout the population, though changes are slow enough that most people don't notice the difference, the average height has increased by half a foot in the first ten years and is continuing to do so._

_Global military funding of the project has resulted in the first nationless army, which is trained and outfitted by the Destiny project, new 'modern' weapons and armour as well as militarised starships, boasting some of the most powerful non-nuclear weapons humanity has – the rail gun. For special forces, infantry versions of the rail gun are manufactured, but few possess the raw strength for their bodies to withstand the recoil of launching the projectile. Artificial intelligence is also being heavily researched, though with fears of rebellion, safety measures are put in place before any research is conducted._

_Shortly after the project's creation (all files and messages are handwritten and delivered to prevent alien life detecting their progress) Destiny discovers an artificial object looming in the orbit of Saturn. No immediate action is taken, but it is carefully monitored._

_By 2085 the human population is once again increasing exponentially, though numbers worldwide are at roughly 7 billion. Mars and Lunar colonies are founded, and each currently holds roughly 2 million people, spread across their surfaces in a myriad of colony buildings. As a large scale experiment it is wholly successful. Terraforming of mars has allowed for an atmosphere to develop enough to not need enviro-suits._

_2090 July_

_Full exploration of the artificial complex is complete and an energy station is found – once the plug is on the complex comes to life, but all that remain are lights and broken equipment. Carbon dating puts the age of the equipment at roughly 50,000 years old._

_2101_

_Early in the second year of the new century a new form of space flight has been crafted. 'Worm holing' is now the most efficient way to travel throughout the solar system through tunnels created by spaceships that reduce travel time by an incredible amount. Getting from one side of the system to another is almost instantaneous, and projected times for traversing the galaxy is estimated at roughly one month from one extreme verge to the other._

_Worm holing is a consequence of the successful development of synthetic life and artificial intelligence, with the first AI being designated Spock, after the popular 20__th__ century sci-fi 'Star Trek's own hyper-intelligent being. It is also a result of new discoveries in quantum physics that allow for the holes to opened without gargantuan amounts of energy due to the constant movement of particles and manipulation of EM fields._

_Development in human proportions has levelled, with average height being at roughly seven foot, a large number of people even reaching eight. Human life expectancy has also increased twofold, although someone is yet to live past the two century mark. Technology advanced so much during the 30 year war, though human augmentation is largely untested due to its controversial nature._

_In late 2101 Project Destiny created a subproject dubbed Project Chronicler._

* * *

2101 Listening post Bravek, Pvt Moklan

For over seventy years this outpost of the Batarian hegemony had stood, its crew did shifts of a couple of months – but it was largely seen as a punishment, merely watching a puny, underdeveloped race wage war with itself, and as was surmised, it would kill itself and the Hegemony would then be able to colonise the garden world without council scrutiny. But then the species had stopped fighting. The only reason the Listening post knew that humanity hadn't destroyed itself was the continued reception of digital and analogue radio signals and other EM waves that were being emitted unnaturally from the planet in question.

The Hegemony had been informed of this, but elected to do nothing, interested as to how this race would develop. If Moklan had had his way, he would have gone in then and enslaved the entire race then and there while they still lacked true spaceflight.

Now they had colonies on two other planets – albeit still in their home system – and had developed their own form of FTL, as demonstrated by the single ship that had performed their first jump from one end of the system to the other and back a few months ago, as well as the now rapidly increasing colony sizes both on their red planet and their moon.

As far as Moklan was concerned, the Hegemony were idiots for not seizing the opportunity presented thirty years ago with the humans at the end of their war, weakened by thirty years of fighting, they wouldn't have stood a chance against the might of the Batarian armada.

Now maybe they wouldn't be fodder, but Moklan knew they would still be easy prey now should be the time to strike before these 'humans' get too used to being free.

-_ Pvt Moklan, Listening post Bravek, Sol system._

_The humans have finally developed FTL. The crop is ready to harvest._


End file.
